Monday My wife Julia alerted me to an intriguing although somewhat frustrating article in Atlantic about the end of time. Drawing on Frank Kermode’s 1967 The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction, Megan Garber wrestles with an issue recently raised by The Washington Post: how do we live with constant reminders […]
Tag Archives: William Shakespeare
Do Endings Reveal Meaning of Life?
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Dover Beach", "Second Coming", Alexander Pope, endings, Frank Kermode, King Lear, Matthew Arnold, modernism, post-apocalyptic fiction, Samuel Beckett, Sense of an Ending, William Butler Yeats, world weary ennui Comments closed
How I Make Literary Connections
Wednesday A friend the other day asked where my ideas come from, especially when I apply a passage from one century to incidents in another. Yesterday, for instance, I said that Trump confidant Roger Stone reminded me of a passage in Herman Melville’s Confidence Man. So how did that enter my head? To answer, let […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged blogging, Confidence Man, Geoffrey Chaucer, Herman Melville, Restoration comedies, Twelfth Night, Wife of Bath Comments closed
Lit as a Survival Toolkit
Thursday Friend and occasional guest blogger Carl Rosin alerted me to a heartfelt Commonweal article by an English professor describing how literature helped her confront and work through childhood abuse. Cassandra Nelson’s difficult history leads to some remarkable insights into trigger warnings, which she opposes. Nelson’s view on trigger warnings is pretty much my own […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Bluest Eye, Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Bruno Bettelheim, childhood trauma, Dante, Inferno, Junot Diaz, King Lear, sexual abuse, sexual assault, Toni Morrison Comments closed
Which Shakespeare Character Is Trump?
Wednesday It’s satisfying to see national pundits take a page out of Better Living through Beowulf and turn to the classics to understand Donald Trump. Okay, so NeverTrumper conservative Bret Stephens has probably never read this blog, but we both recognize how literature deepens our understanding of the world, including American politics. I particularly appreciate […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aristophanes, Donald Trump, Henry IV Part I, Henry IV Part II, Lysistrata, Macbeth, Nikolai Gogol, Othello, Richard III Comments closed
Trump’s Taming of the GOP
Thursday Political scientists will debate for years how Donald J. Trump took over and “Trumpified” the modern Republican party. Multiple explanations exist, including George Packer’s theory that Trump represents a longtime rot within the GOP (I blogged about this on Monday). Nevertheless, it still boggles the mind that a disreputable realtor to whom no one […]
Read to Resist: An Introduction
Thursday I share today the introduction to my upcoming book, which is still in draft form and whose title I keep changing. Latest title: Read to Resist: Classic Lit Provides Tools for Battling Trump and Trumpism. I’m still not entirely satisfied with that and so will keep tinkering. In any event, here’s my first attempt […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Alexander Pope, Beowulf, Donald Trump, Dunciad, Go Set a Watchman, H. G. Wells, Harper Lee, Invisible Man, John Milton, Leo Tolstoy, Othello, Paradise Lost, To Kill a Mockingbird, Trump resistance, War and Peace Comments closed
Teaching Lit in Ljubljana
I share my experiences teaching Shakespeare and post-colonial literature in Slovenia.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood, Midsummer Night's Dream, Prešeren (France), Romeo and Juliet, travel abroad Comments closed
An Incel Killer and an English Major
Maura Binkley was an English major killed by an incel killer in a Tallahassee yoga studio. Her department chair turned to Shakespeare in his grief.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Hamlet, King Lear, Maura Binkley, Othello, Tallahassee yoga killing Comments closed
